DARPA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology are testing three different systems for in-the-field spoken language translation for English speakers that may not know the common language of a country they visit. The technology (being called TRANSTAC) would be used to assist military forces, mainly, as they come in contact with civilians, informants, and imprisoned enemies. One of the technologies relies on none other than the trusty Nexus One that Google stopped selling not too long ago.
The technology has been tested with Pashto-to-English and English-to-Pashto encounters thus far and things seemed to work quite well. We’re not sure how the Nexus One came to be one of the devices used for this undertaking (and we also don’t have a clear idea of what other two devices were being used), but we hope it’s gotten high marks in its testing and emerges to become the top device to use for this purpose.
[via Engadget]